


The Next Someday

by htbthomas



Category: The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel (TV)
Genre: Bittersweet Ending, Cunnilingus, Explicit Sexual Content, F/M, Season/Series 03 Spoilers, Sexual Roleplay, Yuletide Treat, strangers in a bar
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-25
Updated: 2019-12-25
Packaged: 2021-02-26 01:23:39
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,336
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21856228
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/htbthomas/pseuds/htbthomas
Summary: These evenings where they pretend like they're perfect strangers, meeting for the first and last time, they help her forget that other life, her real life, where this thing between them would never work.
Relationships: Lenny Bruce (The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel)/Miriam "Midge" Maisel
Comments: 21
Kudos: 159
Collections: Yuletide 2019





	The Next Someday

**Author's Note:**

  * For [blithers](https://archiveofourown.org/users/blithers/gifts).

> Thank you to Isis for the beta!

"Been a rough one?" the man says, sliding into the seat beside Midge and nodding at the row of empty martini glasses.

She looks him over, a long glance up and down, before she answers. Trim, black suit, a little worse for wear, like he's worn it a hundred times in a hundred different bars. A half-past ten shadow on a face with even darker eyes. "I could say the same about you."

He shrugs, not denying it. "It's a life, you know?" He catches the bartender's eye. "Whiskey, straight up." He points at her drink. "And another for the lady."

She smiles. He's handsome enough, and she likes the rough-around-edges look, at least for tonight. "What kind of life is that?"

"What is that they say? 'If I told you, I'd have to kill you'?"

"Really?" she asks, sounding impressed.

"Not really, but I think it's killing _me_. Door-to-door salesman."

"Eugh. Wouldn't wish that on anyone—not even my old neighbor Mr. Lipschitz."

"Terrible guy?"

"Terrible temper, terrible smell, even a fucking terrible dog, you name it, he had it." Their drinks arrive, and she raises her glass. "To less terrible lives."

He clinks his glass and swigs the drink back. "So what makes your life so terrible?"

With a short laugh, she says, "What doesn't? Let me tell you, it's—" She stops, the charade breaking for a moment. Lenny is waiting, his face shaped in an expression of interest in hearing her made up version of her terrible life, which... "It's not so terrible, really. Not tonight, anyway."

Sure, she's had some terrible things happen in the past two years, some her fault, and some not. These evenings where they pretend like they're perfect strangers, meeting for the first and last time, they help her forget that other life, her real life, where this thing between them would never work.

"Yeah, you're right," he says covering her hand with his. "It doesn't seem so terrible right now." 

The band starts up again, back from their break, and he stands, lifting her hand to invite her onto the dance floor. She lets herself be led, this woman who isn't Midge, to sway back and forth gently with a man that isn't Lenny, letting couples who don't know either version of them swirl around them in the low light. It reminds her of the time in Florida, where they got to imagine, if only for one night, that they were other people. It was the beginning of all this, really, these too few stolen nights, away from reality.

His hand comes up to tuck a strand of hair around one of her ears. "What are you thinking about?" he murmurs.

"Just..." She's thinking about that other life, and she shouldn't be. That's not the point of this, of this pretending, of this escape. "Just how much I like this song."

"This one?" He lifts his head, eyes going softly unfocused as he listens, and then starts to hum along. 

Saying she liked the song was only an excuse, something that other woman might say. It's an older song, more her parents' generation, but when she actually tunes in to it, she decides she really does like it. She can't quite remember its name.

He spins her and dips her just as his humming turns into singing the words, just loud enough for her ears, "...my Satin Doll..." The way he sings it, he sounds almost possessive, and a flush creeps all the way out from her center to the tips of her fingers. He brings her up from the dip and kisses her, slow and gentle.

The flush turns into a fire. When the kiss ends, she asks, "You got a room in this place?"

He gives her the ghost of a grin. "No. But I can get one."

* * *

They tumble into the room, giggling, the alcohol and the rush of the forbidden making them giddy. He kisses her again after the door is shut, his hands smoothing up and down the small of her back. His fingers take hold of the zipper at the back of her dress, but before he starts to tug it down, his roaming hands stop. "I never asked your name."

"Does it matter?" Sometimes they make up elaborate backstories with fully-fleshed-out characters, and other times, times when they've each had a particularly bad couple of weeks, they just want to get down to it.

He tilts his head to the side. "I guess not," he says, and then attacks her neck with his mouth, while pulling the zipper down in one practiced swipe.

Her dress falls to the floor and she kicks out of it, the layers of satin and tulle making a blessed heap on the floor. He backs them both up to the edge of the bed and she falls back onto the coverlet, his mouth never disconnecting from her skin. She loves the urgency of it, the feeling that this is the first time these two imaginary people have met—but maybe the last time these two real people can do this. The last time before she's too recognizable to drink alone at a hotel bar, the last time that he's let out of jail with only a bail payment and a stern warning. Or before either or both of them is too tied up in their personal lives and careers to see each other like this again.

It's too bad, she thinks—as he peels down her panties and stockings, kissing her waist, the hollow of her hip, dipping his tongue between her folds and making her arch up from the bed—that they can't do this for real. They'd be perfect for each other in so many ways, touring together or separately, neither one worried about what the other might say in their set, no strings, no messy engagements or quickie divorces, just pure enjoyment of each other's company and comfort in each other's arms.

His tongue is doing things to her that should be illegal in all 50 states—where did he learn this?—and she never wants him to stop. When he adds a finger, she gasps a long drawn-out "Fuuuuuck," and she can feel him smile against her clit before he adds another and does just that with his talented fingers. She tangles her own fingers into his hair to encourage him.

She is so tempted to tell the world it can go fuck itself, that they don't have to be the next George and Gracie, that they can have separate careers but the same bed and she doesn't have to hitch onto his star to make hers rise. That her parents don't have to worry about having an unmarried daughter and grandkids who only see their father for months out of the year and—

Her orgasm washes over her; suddenly, she can't think anymore and it's a relief. Through a haze of satisfaction, she watches him kick off his own pants, not bothering with the shirt and tie. He rolls on a condom and then he's spreading her legs wide and pushing inside her. His thrusts are hard, fast, frantic, like he's trying to forget just as much as she is. And she loves it. "Harder," she tells him between her gasps.

When he comes it's with a loud groan, and he collapses beside her, spent as though he's just done a back-to-back set. "You're telling me," she says, and he chuckles fondly. She wants to scoot up the bed and curl beneath the sheets with him, then fall into a dreamless sleep. But Susie is back at the hotel across town, and he's got a plane to catch, probably, or maybe a bus. 

He puts an arm around her and presses a gentle kiss to her temple. "See you the next someday?"

And because she never knows when that's going to be, she doesn't promise anything—or at least, she doesn't say it aloud. She closes her eyes and nods.


End file.
